Shadow Play

by Frances Fyfield

  ‘That means Michael would have to know.’ Rose was faltering, looking for the excuse which Helen might find easiest to understand.

  ‘Not necessarily, and besides, if you’re going anywhere with Michael, he’ll have to know.’

  Rose took one of Helen’s cigarettes. They coughed in concert. It didn’t do to be too sensible. The nicotine made Rose dizzy, yet cleared her head. ‘I think I want to wait a day or two for that,’ she said in her firmest voice so far. ‘Can we clear up the Dinsdale thing first? If I help sort that out, I’ll feel I’ve done something. Feel better. Stronger.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Helen, thinking, Don’t push the girl, let her do things her own way. ‘I’ve been thinking about that too. Dinsdale. We could go to the office, pull every file he’s had in the last year, cross index it to drunk drivers, see if we can find a pattern.’ The Dinsdale side of things was sad, distressing and guilt creating: she wanted it over and done with. ‘Only I can’t work that bloody computer.’

  ‘I can,’ said Rose.

  Nothing happened quickly. The car would not start without an hour’s persuasion. Another hour was spent collecting two of Rose’s teddy bears, a ton of cosmetic equipment and, as an afterthought, more clothes. Then Rose changed her mind, said she did want to drive by the house which had once been her home, feeling suddenly braver. They were silent as they covered the two miles in the unhealthy-sounding car; Rose terrified it would stop and leave them marooned on Dad’s territory, but she dared not say, nor even state to herself the reasons for sitting like a stiff wooden soldier. In case she saw Gran hobbling down the street, alive and well. Or saw Mum, as usual with a shopping basket. She wanted Helen to guess, from the address she must have noted half a dozen times, who her father was without her having to say it out loud, and so save Rose feeling so resentful that Helen hadn’t worked it out already. But it was a Saturday afternoon, football season. The road was blocked off, the surrounding streets triple parked, nothing moving until the end of the game. Rose heaved a sigh of relief. Now they could go to the office, postpone the issue, and the office was safe.

  Logo squatted down on his haunches in the basement, winded by the warmth, disorientated and aware of the discomfort of the knife which lay inside his torn trouser pocket against his thigh, hooked on to his belt. Margaret’s best kitchen knife, useful for cheese. There were footsteps upstairs. He scuttled to a window facing the railings, craned upwards to see if someone was leaving, but no door slammed. The footsteps were so muffled they were almost infinitesimal and as they stopped he thought he could hear the distant murmurings of a television. Football, he guessed: the bastard doorman hypnotised for a couple of hours. He thought of those big arc lights for the winter games, thought how gloomy it was down here with the feeble supply of daylight fading and the railings gleaming wetly above. Logo began to explore. Empty rooms and rooms full of paper, dull little alcoves and meaningless passageways, a distant humming; he liked it a lot. There was a fire-detecting device winking and whirring after twenty steps in one direction and after that he encountered the boiler-room door and wondered how the place seemed to be full of such strange, heavy-breathing animals, but apart from these, quieter than a graveyard. He found a set of narrow stairs and next to that, a lift in the wall for goods, with the shutter doors open. This piece of equipment delighted him in particular. There were a couple of dozen files on the floor of the thing: he threw these to one side and squeezed himself in. Cosy, like the size of his trolley, an excellent hiding place for a little man, if a little cramped. The thought of Margaret fluttered into his mind and then out. He uncurled himself and continued to wander round. Paper, miles of paper, it would make a good fire. He liked the idea of that, but on reflection, decided it was the wrong kind of paper, and he was an expert on rubbish, it wouldn’t burn easily.

  Now he was here, he realised he had nothing to do and although it was late afternoon, night-time was a long way off. He sat on the edge of the lift, surveyed the stairs to the upper floors, listened to the boiler, ate one bar of chocolate with loud smacking noises, finished it with a sigh and took off his coat. He wanted to sing for this sense of safety and completeness, tinged with excitement: my, my, so Eenie came to work here on Monday, sometimes stayed over, hadn’t she done well. But the chocolate made him thirsty, he needed a source of water, some cover in case the present warmth did not persist, and he needed a place to pee. None of that was available on this level as far as he could see, just paper. The stairwell beckoned; the wooden banister felt warm to the touch. He ascended in his best training shoes, silent, still wanting to laugh. There was a game he had in mind. That woman, the one he’d scared on the court rooftop, the one who had let him off the other day, who had the nerve to pity him, she worked in here too, she said. He could find her room if he wanted, use that as a toilet, show her: wipe his bottom on her chair. The stairs went on up to the ground floor, led into a corridor which fanned from the foyer. Behind a closed door facing him, the sound of the television was louder. Full of impudence Logo knocked, ready to run, although it had been a quiet tap; he felt like playing games, but there was no response. He danced a jig where he stood, remembered the desire to urinate, found a door marked ‘Women’ and inside there he rationed his own relief, saving it gleefully, and flushed the chain without thinking. Still no response from the TV room. Onwards and upwards, having crossed the foyer and found a grander sweep of stairs, he progressed, walking down each corridor on each floor in turn until finally he was lost. That distressed him, but only a little. Those that are lost shall be found, he told himself, and there, like a message from the New Testament, was another version of the same goods lift, staring him in the face, like home. Logo realised he had gone full circle. He suddenly fancied a ride in that thing, not the big conventional lift which he had also seen, marked ‘Out of order’; all he had to do, surely, was go straight back down, if he wanted, and he’d be back where he had started, and whatever his boldness, he knew he wanted a way out, as well as a warm and quiet place to sleep. He pressed the red button; the lift whined up to join him. Here it was even warmer.

  Logo looked into a large room with a grand chair, big desk, very tidy, organised and controlled. Ah yes, looked like hers, the room of a bossy-boots with pretty clothes, full of severe authority and better carpet than outside in the corridor, but it smelt of man, and whatever else Mizz West was, she was certainly not male, better be sure. He giggled, coughed back the ever-present laughter, still wanted to sing. Until, like an echo of his own mild noise which he carried with him as he moved back into the corridor, he heard more laughter, more coughing, a chorus line of sound coming closer. In a moment of panic, he was incapable of discerning the direction of the sound; in one second he thought it came from behind him in the grand room, then from his right, then from his left, but it came towards him up the stairs and he had no notion of where these people might go. He looked wildly for the smallest space to hide, wanted to curl up rather than stay still, spied the goods lift with open jaws, thrust himself inside with his knees to his chin. He pressed the metal shutter half together with the palms of his hands. Neat.

  ‘That doorman ought to be sacked, never mind anyone else,’ Helen was raging on the way upstairs, coughing. ‘You have to phone from a call box to get him to open the door, and even then, we might have been anyone. No wonder Dinsdale—’

  ‘And me,’ Rose cut in sharply. ‘And me. He let me stay here on Thursday night, like I said, so don’t knock him. Or shop him. I’ll have a word if you want. He needs a job like everyone else.’ She was somewhat sick of the diatribe which had lasted two flights. The lift was broken. Helen was being a nag. Sometimes she understood, other times she knew sweet nothing about anything and she looked sick. Keep reminding yourself you like her, Rose was thinking as they puffed to the door of the clerks’ room, you do really.

  The room was always a mess, less so when Rose ruled it, but discipline had slipped on Friday. Helen found herself resenting the way they were all cramped in here
, while others, like Redwood, had rooms as big but all on their own. Rose went to where the computer sat, behind a screen on a kind of pedestal as befitted its status, pressed buttons and inserted disks with the ease of a pilot.

  ‘How do you know how to do that?’ Helen asked, feeling inept.

  ‘I watched,’ said Rose. ‘I’m a quick learner.’

  ‘Quicker than me. Give me something useful to do.’

  ‘You can sit and knit. You aren’t well, you know.’ She was mimicking Helen’s solicitude. They both laughed.

  ‘I think we’ll start,’ said Rose thoughtfully, ‘with the finished cases from last month, beginning with his, Dinsdale’s, I mean. If he was deliberately losing papers, there’d be files he was given either to look at or take to court first time, that’s how he’d know which ones he wanted to lose. He’d often get bloody cross if he was sent to a different court at the last minute. I reckon the ones you and John got, you got by mistake. He was supposed to go out there and lose gracefully. Right, let’s have his list.’ Helen watched the screen in amazement. ‘It says the first twelve have gone to store,’ said Rose, proud to act as interpreter. ‘That means they’re in the basement somewhere. We just shove ’em down there, and then file them every now and then, we’re supposed to keep them for five years …’

  ‘I wouldn’t know where to start down there. Are there rats?’

  ‘Course not,’ said Rose scornfully. ‘I wouldn’t have slept down there otherwise, would I? All the rats are upstairs. I’ll go down. You have a look in Redwood’s room. He keeps the main diary in there, showing where everyone is. Make a list of the courts old D goes to most regularly. There might be a clue in that.’ Rose was showing off a little; Helen, humbled by her lack of knowledge of the office machinery, demurred slightly, but it seemed best to let Rose control.

  ‘Why don’t I come down to the basement with you? Aren’t you a bit nervous going down there?’

  ‘I’m never nervous here. It’s the only place I’m not. Save your breath.’

  Her footsteps pattered away down the stairs with light speed. Oh, for youth, Helen thought, wandering out into the corridor, down a few doors and into Redwood’s room. Hot in here, close, with an odd smell, like old air freshener. She noticed her anglepoise lamp on the desk, you’re welcome Mr R, I’m sure, turned it on, fished in her bag for a cigarette, enjoying the sensation of doing what was normally forbidden in the throne room, went across to the huge window behind Redwood’s desk and flung it open. She looked out briefly into the street where a single mean lamp reflected a fine drizzle now descending into an area which was never light. They had been chilled and coughing on the way here; now she wanted cold air to clear her head, so she approached the other window, guilty for being a trespasser, thinking, I can quite see why Redwood likes sneaking around, fun really. Then stopped. Coming from behind, reflected in the old and wavy glass, a creature tiptoeing like a child sent out to hide and seek. Even before she turned, she could smell him. His was the scent of the room, artificially sweet, menacing, not immediately recognisable, and there he was, creeping towards her with a silly smile on his face. Helen spun round before he reached her. He was still five paces away over the dun-coloured carpet when she spoke, the voice not reflecting her panic as she measured the length between herself and the telephone.

  ‘Hallo, Mr Logo,’ she said neutrally. ‘Who let you in? Perhaps you better tell me before I call the doorman for the police.’

  He giggled, followed her eyes to the phone, shook his head. Helen got the message.

  ‘I want my daughter,’ he announced. ‘I want Eenie. You’ve got her here. All of you, you keep her locked up, away from me.’

  ‘Your daughter? There’s no-one called Eenie here. What’s her real name?’

  ‘That’s what the man said, no-one here called that, what a stinking load of liars you are, and you gave me these, people like you. You like my handcuff burns? Her granny used to call her Rose. Never liked calling her Enid.’

  He was dancing in front of her, little swaying movements from foot to foot, pushing back the sleeves of his powder-stained jacket, releasing more of the same sickly smell and showing her his thin wrists, ringed with brown marks she’d seen before.

  ‘See these?’ he said. ‘Gives me strong wrists. You give me handcuff burns. People like you.’

  He stopped thoughtfully, inches away, Helen pressed against the glass of the window which seemed to creak against her weight. Truth was emerging with alarming confusion. Logo, the father of Rose, of course, of course, and in that split second she could at last understand the reason for the child’s terror.

  ‘Her mother used to call her Rosie Lee. After tea,’ he added inconsequentially. Helen gazed at his wrists, hypnotised. Saw the knife hanging from his belt, thought, Oh, God no, I cannot be brave, I cannot bite back, not this time, not again, I have used it all up, whatever little courage I used to have.

  ‘I don’t think those are handcuff burns, Mr Logo,’ she said contemptuously. ‘I think it’s just dirt. Show me.’

  He stopped, open mouthed, distracted, held his hands, palm upwards. ‘Come towards the light,’ she ordered. He did as he was bid, never once taking his eyes off her face, shuffling to the desk, moving his hands to the light; he smiled suddenly, angled the lamp neatly, and began to twist his hands into shapes. Shadows sprang against the far wall, moving monsters, a pig with a snout and a tail, full of strange energy. Helen turned to look, her heart thundering in her ears, her eyes rounded, her left hand feeling for the telephone and her voice forming a scream.

  ‘It isn’t you I want,’ he said suddenly. ‘You’re in the way. Where is she? I heard her.’

  ‘I sent her home,’ said Helen. ‘There was nothing for her to do until Monday. She’s gone. Come back and find her on Monday. She’ll be here then. There’s only me here now.’

  The shadow play stopped abruptly. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said. ‘And it isn’t just dirt. There’s no such thing as just dirt.’ The anger was sudden and malevolent. The brown wrists were level with her eyes, his hands grabbing great chunkfuls of her tied back hair, shaking her head about like a rag doll, his spittle landing on her face to add spite to his words. Then he twisted her round, so one arm was across her throat, bending her neck back, the wrist of the other hand was in front of her eyes. ‘Dirt,’ he said. ‘Dirt, is it? That’s what she is, dirt, but you, you’re the real filth.’ The pressure grew stronger. Helen bent and jerked her elbows back into his abdomen, flung herself free and ran for the corridor. She ran blindly, glancing wildly into the darkened rooms as she passed, looking for salvation, somewhere with a lock on the door, a weapon, enough time to be with a telephone, open a window, scream, but her legs were leaden, her mind in the paralysis of futile fear, unable to stop running. There was a sense of déjà vu about personal attack; as she ran, she was in the throes of the last, remembering it, full of the images of her bedroom and Peter’s brother, stinking with his own bitterness. She knew she would not bite this time and kept running. Too late, she realised, even as she sensed how his pounding footsteps behind her had faded, that she had run the full square of the floor and was back where she had begun, with him behind or in front, it made no odds, but the smell was with her, in her hair and her eyes. She paused, uncertain, by the goods lift where the scent was strongest. It was darker, someone had turned off the corridor light. Helen turned and shouted, ‘Rose, Rose! Get out, get out!’ hoping against hope the sound would travel. Silence and dark; for a moment she breathed easier.

  He leapt from the lift, a black sprite with his kitchen knife, lunging. ‘There!’ he hissed. ‘There! You were lying, you were lying …’ Oh not my face, she remembered thinking, please not my face, let me die pretty, please. Putting up her arms to shield her eyes she kicked wildly, connected with thin knees, heard him grunt in pain, shift his balance. There was a thud as the knife dropped, whether because of the impatience of his violence, or clumsiness, she did not know, but his hands were in her hair
again; she was pinned against the frame of the lift, nerveless, his braced legs prising her own apart as he banged the back of her head repeatedly against the metal surround, until she slid down, leaving him holding her half upright by the hair alone. Logo let her slump, bent over and hissed, ‘Where is she? Where is she? I don’t want you, no-one would want you.’ There was no response.

  He let go of her hair. She rolled over on to the floor. ‘Filth,’ Logo muttered with a quick kick to her ribs. ‘I don’t need you.’

  As if he could not have guessed if he used his wits. Rose would be hiding where she could play with shadows. He stood and waited to see if Mizz West would move. She didn’t. That was all right then. He hoped she was dead.

  Oh why had she not run downstairs, instead of in this hopeless circle? Helen wanted to be dead, wanted never to have to fight back against anything ever again. Her eyes were closed, but she knew she had rolled on to the knife, the wooden haft of it digging into her waistline, the scenery inside her eyes a mass of purple, exploding clouds. Stay still: let him do what he wants, it doesn’t matter, just finish it. She heard him giggle, then footsteps going away, unhurried, purposeful. She could sleep then, simply sleep, wait for someone to come, Monday would do, nothing mattered, she wanted to let go of everything. Rose, though: somewhere down there without the rats, was Rose. It was only Rose Logo wanted and the doorman was useless, wouldn’t hear a bomb. Move, Helen, you’ve got to move, there’s nobody else, there never is, but it was difficult. So she rolled, tried to sit up, half successful, but hurting. The light was still on in Redwood’s room, insinuating itself into the darkness. The red light button for the goods lift shone in reflection, the only way of issuing a warning, give Rose a weapon. As she picked up the knife with a shaking hand, Helen could feel herself fading. There was blood on the knife. Oh please, not my face; it doesn’t matter about your face, you should be ashamed, come on. She struggled to her knees, let the knife drop into the open mouth of the lift, pressed the red button, listened to it whirr away, and then sank back. In a minute I’ll move, in a minute: not now. Find a telephone. Slowly she crawled in the direction of the light from Redwood’s domain, wanting to keep her face near the floor, then raising herself half upright, began a different and shuffling progress on her knees. She debated briefly in the middle of the crawl: go forwards to the light, or back to the clerks’ room? She made the decision to go forward, called by the light, thinking, I don’t think this makes sense. Oh Rose, please run, I know what you mean, just run, out the way he came in, any way, but run. And halfway there, still gathering speed, she heard the sound of a phone. From the direction she had abandoned, the clerks’ room, the logical place to go, but dark in there. Rose, phoning from the basement before Logo reached her? The doorman at the end of the football game, sensing drama? She crawled back, her knees rubbed raw against the harshness of the worn carpet, reached the door on the twelfth ring, managed to get to her feet on the leverage of the first desk and then it stopped as she reached and fell, down into another kind of darkness, lay quiet and winded, praying it would ring again.